A fixture of the European CG calendar, the popular non-profit community event has been described as like Siggraph but with “250 of your best buddies, held in a pub, and [with] none of the commercial stuff”.

Tech talks from key tools developers
For many Max users, the main draw will be Eddie Perlberg’s closed session providing “an inside look at the development and future of 3ds Max”, offering “opportunities to share [your feedback] with the 3ds Max team”.

Another highlight looks to be Chaos Group’s session on its current research, including virtual performance capture, and GPU-based final-frame and massively parallel rendering in V-Ray.

“Ever wonder what it was like rendering V-Ray on more than 100K cores?” runs the teasing tagline for the talk.

And for plugin users, Paul Roberts of Itoo Software will be running masterclasses on RailClone and Forest Pack; while Ephere’s Michael McCarthy will be exploring node-based workflows and hair rendering in V-Ray.

Talks from leading visualisation, VFX and games artists
There is also a strong line-up of speakers from creative studios, including Neoscape founder Nils Norgren, Luxigon founder Eric de Broche, and Platige Image’s Artur Owśnicki and Klaudiusz Wesołowski.

Other highlights include masterclasses from Bottleship VFX’s Hristo Velev on destruction and dynamics FX in 3ds Max, and from indie mocap tools pioneer Jasper Brekelmans on using inexpensive commercial camera-based sensors like Kinect 2 and Leap Motion for creative CG work.

If you’re a 3ds Max user – or if you just want to find out what some of the industry’s most interesting artists and developers are working on – we think it looks like a pretty compelling program.

End User Event 2014 takes place in Utrecht in the Netherlands from 5-6 June. Tickets cost €125 (around $210) for a single day; or €260 for both plus dinner on the first day.